Midtown Detroit, Inc. and the Detroit Institute of Arts have announced the winner of its DIA Plaza | Midtown Cultural Connections international design competition, first launched in 2017. Detroit Square is a proposal from an international consortium led by Paris-based Agence Ter and including Detroit-based Akoaki, rootoftwo, and Harley Etienne.

The proposal reimagines the 83-acre Cultural Center in Midtown and its 12 educational and cultural institutions, highlighted by the DIA, the Detroit Public Library, the Detroit Historical Museum, Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History and the Michigan Science Center and several others.

It includes major new green spaces, a winding greenway connecting the 12 institutions, cafes, art installations, performance spaces and two plaza areas that could serve as public event spaces and warrant the temporary closure of Woodward to vehicles. There’s also a big focus on adding public Wi-Fi and 5G cellular connections throughout the site.

In addition to talking about that on today’s show, we cover:

• Royal Oak has had enough of your Woodward cruise shenanigans, and police there are adopting a zero-tolerance policy toward speeding, illegal parking and littering.
• Google is investing $17 in expansions in Detroit and Ann Arbor.
• The Special Inspector General For the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or SIGTARP, will audit demolitions in Detroit and other Michigan cities to monitor against the spread of contaminated soil.
• About 100 security guards in downtown Detroit have voted to go on strike.
• A man listed by police as a suspect in a string of serial killings in Detroit has been charged in an attack after his alleged victim was able to escape. [Detroit News]
• And I offer a completely ludricrous-but-maybe-not idea for relocating the Grand Prix from Belle Isle: The ring road at Oakland Mall.

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